We should be outraged about McBride’s death, and many people have been, channeling their anger into blog posts and online petitions. But many of the people who have commented on the story with their hearts in the right place have gotten two key facts of the case wrong—and those misrepresented facts could have dangerous consequences.

Numerous media outlets are reporting that Pennsylvania has banned the touching of a pregnant person’s belly without permission with a “new” or “renewed” or “expanded” law. However, it is already illegal to touch a person without consent in every state, pregnant or not.

Pope Francis said he objects to “laboratories” where out-of-touch people in power develop solutions to problems they don’t understand. Yet it seems those efforts don't include a willingness to try and understand actual women’s lives.

The Archdiocese of Cincinnati argued that although Christa Dias was hired to teach computer classes and is not Catholic, she was still considered a minister of the Catholic Church and therefore could be fired for not adhering to Catholic teachings about IVF. But Dias won in court.

A misreading of the verdict in an upsetting Texas case has gone viral, since Gawker claimed: “Texas Says It's OK to Shoot an Escort If She Won't Have Sex With You.” Texas law does not say that, and the jury didn’t either. This story looks very different depending on if you are looking at the law or the reporting.

Given our commitment to recognizing and dismantling systems of oppression that deny individuals self-determination and bodily integrity, reproductive justice advocates must demand an end to force-feeding at Guantanamo.

Some religiously-affiliated institutions characterize themselves as "secular" when recruiting or seeking public funding but "church-controlled" when demanding exemptions from the law, such as the birth control benefit. Potential employees, students, and patients—as well as taxpayers generally—deserve to know who they are dealing with.

It is now clear that no “compromise” short of freeing all health plans from any regulation whatsoever having to do with contraception will placate fundamentalist Catholic groups. But with the Notre Dame appeal also comes evidence that the costs of these suits to Catholic universities is rising.

Anti-choice activist Jill Stanek recently published online the name and photo of a woman who passed away following a late-term abortion at the Maryland clinic of Dr. Leroy Carhart. Beyond being unethical and unbelievably cruel, making her family’s tragedy public without their consent was likely illegal.

Did you know that from the sixties through the nineties, clergy and faculty at Notre Dame, Georgetown, and other Catholic-affiliated universities lobbied for coverage of birth control? And argued for the moral imperative of providing coverage for contraception... even on campus?

There is no mention of abortion in the Constitution so it can’t be protected. However, in a recent essay, Andrew Koppelman challenges this assertion on originalist grounds: forced reproduction was intrinsic to slavery, which the framers of the Thirteenth Amendment sought to prohibit.

Thirty lawsuits have been filed by corporations challenging the HHS regulation requiring that most health plans cover contraceptives. A survey of these cases yields some useful information as to what the “religious freedom” debate is all about.

The recent Huffington Post article by Sister Mary Ann Walsh of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops tells us quite a bit about the veracity of the USCCB’s claims that religious freedom is under attack in the United States.

Under New York State's law mandating insurance coverage for contraception, Fordham was able to accept that religiously-affiliated entities that want to sell products in the marketplace like insurance and federally-subsidized education must meet the same quality standards as non-religious organizations. Unfortunately, despite state law, Fordham still fails to guarantee access to affordable contraception.

Last week, the Fordham Law School chapter of Law Students for Reproductive Justice held an off-campus clinic to provide access to birth control prescriptions and condoms to students of our Catholic University. It was a greater success than we had hoped for, but the University still refuses to clarify its policies, much less prescribe contraception.

Fordham University prohibits the prescription of contraception at its health centers and the distribution of condoms on campus though many students aren't aware of that until they've paid for the school's insurance or visited the health center. Many are denied birth control even when facing health risks. This week, law students at the Catholic school are taking matters into their own hands by organizing a clinic just off-campus.